Oaks Christian baseball’s new head coach is ex-Pepperdine coach Rick Hirtensteiner

Oaks Christian School has hired former Pepperdine baseball coach Rick Hirtensteiner as its new head coach.

The hiring was announced on social media on Thursday afternoon.

“It’s a good fit for me,” Hirtensteiner said. “It’s a faith-based institution and they’re really good at academics and really good at sports and I think when you put all three of those things together, it’s something that really interests me. And being able to mentor young men along the way, I think I couldn’t ask for more.”

Hirtensteiner earned All-America first team honors and was named the WCC Player of the Year while playing for Pepperdine. He spent seven seasons playing professional baseball before turning to coaching.

The Oaks Christian athletic administration is excited to announce that Rick Hirtensteiner (@coachHirty) will serve as the next OCS head baseball coach. Coach Hirtensteiner joins Oaks Christian after serving as the head coach for Pepperdine University over the past nine seasons. pic.twitter.com/i1snmaz7lW

— Oaks Christian Lions (@OaksChrstnLions) August 1, 2024

He coached for 25 seasons at Pepperdine, nine of which were spent as the program’s head coach.

“I’m the varsity coach, but we’ll be involved from middle school on up through all the teams,” Hirtensteiner said. “So there’s a wide range of players at different levels, which is interesting, too. Just to develop guys at different ages and different levels.”

Hirtensteiner has three sons who play baseball at Heritage Christian. He inherits a varsity program that finished third in the Marmonte League during the 2024 season.

Previous Lions coach Royce Clayton left Oaks Christian in early June, making the decision to focus on his family. He has triplets who were seniors at Oaks Christian this year and each will be playing a sport at the collegiate level.

“Royce had done a great job for Oaks Christian,” athletic director Brad Cook said. “He was invested in these young men and had a CIF championship a couple years ago. He made the decision that it was time because of his kids.”

Hirtensteiner was briefly in contact with Clayton during his transition to coaching at Oaks Christian and was also in contact with Clayton’s son, Elijah, during his recruiting process. Elijah landed at Cal.

The new Lions coach is in the process of building his coaching staff.